Virginia’s Lamb Of God remain masters of the subgenre called metalcore. Which itself is an offshoot of a thing called the new wave of American metal, which rejects oafish traditionalism and strives to innovate. And if you think this kind of studied ready-reckoning is robbing the music of its soul, then Lamb Of God would agree with you. Their fifth collection (and first for Roadrunner) sees them move away from the mechanised pummelling that bogs so much of this genre down in favour

of a looser approach. It’s still a lot like getting hammered in the skull for an hour, but ‘Wrath’ allows enough range between the power-chug of ‘Grace’ and the forbidding rumblings of ‘Reclamation’ to lift them a long way out of the pits of hell.